Encapsulated medical device guidance system, and a method of controlling the same

An encapsulated medical device guidance system comprising:

• an encapsulated medical device having an internal biological information acquisition unit to acquire internal biological information, a communication unit to output the acquired internal biological information to the outside as an output signal, and a magnet;
• a magnetic field generator which acts on the magnet, and generates a magnetic field for controlling at least one of the position and posture of the encapsulated medical device;
• a control unit to control the magnetic field generator;
• and
• a target posture setting unit to set a desired target posture of the encapsulated medical device,
• wherein the control unit has a dynamic torque estimation unit to estimate a dynamic torque to be applied to the encapsulated medical device in order to achieve or maintain the target posture, the dynamic torque estimation unit estimating the necessary dynamic torque based on gravity that acts on the encapsulated medical device, buoyancy that acts when the encapsulated medical device is floated on water or immersed in water, on the encapsulated medical device, and preliminarily stored characteristics of the encapsulated medical device consisting of at least one of:
• a weight, a center position of gravity, a pivot position as a center of rotation, a distance between the center position of gravity and the pivot position, buoyancy, and a distance between the pivot position and an action point of the buoyancy, and
• the control unit controls a magnetic field generated from the magnetic field generator so that a magnetic torque generated by applying a magnetic field generated by the magnetic field generator to the magnet becomes substantially proportional to a dynamic torque estimated by the dynamic torque estimation unit.